Flora of New York/Preface

Flora of New York is intended as aid in determining whether or not a particular plant taxon is native to New York State. If it is native, the book will indicate how likely that type of plant is to be found now and in the foreseeable future. If the plant is not native, the book will show how much of a problem that plant is likely to be in New York.

The term Flora, as used in the title of this book, for one thing of-course means "plants," as in "flora and fauna."[1] But the term "flora" has also been used for a type of book that describes the plants growing in a particular region, as in John Torrey and Asa Gray's 1838 work, A flora of North America.[2] Torrey also wrote A Flora of the State of New-York in 1843.[3] It's doubtful whether his book will ever become a true Torreyesque "Flora," so there is no article "A" introducing the title. Nor is there a "The," as that might sound like a promise to include all the plants of the state, and nobody needs that kind of pressure. There will be an attempt however to include all of the plants listed in the New York Flora Atlas,[4] an online publication of the New York Flora Association. Currently this only includes the vascular plants, which for now, for practicality, will be a limitation also imposed on this book.

The classification scheme for the angiosperms has been taken largely from James Reveal's paper "An outline of a classification scheme for extant flowering plants," published in Phytoneuron in 2012, and being kept up to date online as of 15 May 2013.